Liberating the
Poverty and womanhood often come as one in rural Namibia. Believing that this inequity is due as much to unfit government policy as culturally set gender roles, a Namibian feminist has decided to attack the problem at the source: women’s self-perception. Gemini News Service tells the story of Veronica de Klerk, who is helping change the fate of her compatriots.
The 1959 poverty-driven riots that cut across Windhoek’s black African townships under the former apartheid grip, made a deep imprint on her outlook on Namibian society’s social imbalances. But she was just 11 years old then and could not see much of the road ahead.
Then came the influence from her missionary parents, which she abandoned later as she felt the biblical path was not the best way to tackle social problems. It was only at the 1995 Beijing Conference on Women, amid all the discussions and the networking among women’s organisations, that she finally found an answer.
Six years on, Veronica de Klerk is perhaps one of the most powerful women in Namibia. Not in terms of political or financial power — she stands at the centre of a radical women’s movement.
Since the formation in 1994 of her Women’s Action in Development (WAD), de Klerk has become a household name in the country. She has been the powerhouse behind more than 3000 women engaged in numerous development projects designed to uplift disadvantaged women in Namibia.
The task at hand is heavy. Of a population of 1.8 million in this southern African country, 51 per cent are women. Of them, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation, 80 per cent live in rural areas, working either at home or on farms, where they represent 59 per cent of the workforce.
But notwithstanding their strong presence in the field, they collect a miniscule amount of what is produced and have to rely on their husbands’ incomes to survive. For the 42.4 per cent female-led households, life tends to be even more complicated as women have little, if any, access to land, loans and agricultural training.
Poverty knocks insistently on the door of these women.
De Klerk, who has been at the helm of WAD since its inception, is convinced that the name of this non-governmental organisation has become a living vocabulary on the lips of most Namibians because of the four-fold solution it puts forward to shake the pattern of dependence: increasing women’s participation in the democratic process, facilitating decision-making by women at all levels of government; making women self-reliant, and enhancing personal choices.
“This vision has been translated into the mission to serve, support and encourage disadvantaged rural women in Namibia to organise themselves into self-help groups through motivation and training and to promote income-generating activities,” summarises de Klerk.
The rural woman is also encouraged to participate in the democratic processes of the country in order to enhance personal growth as well as socio-economic and the socio-political empowerment.
This is done by encouraging women to vote, and so elect the candidates who can represent their points of view in government. Women are also encouraged to run for public office.
The fact that so far only one woman has been elected regional governor in the 13 regions in Namibia lends de Klerk’s work greater urgency.
To prove her strategy right, de Klerk offers her own life as an example. She is convinced that her past experience as a radio journalist, followed by her political baptism as a member of parliament for an opposition party 11 years ago, has led her to her present actions.
“This is perhaps why I manage from a position of strength and assertiveness,” she affirms as she relates how she successfully mobilised Namibian women last year to pressure the Ministry of Health and Social Services to supply free female condoms.
In Namibia, one in four people is HIV infected, and women are a primary target for sexually transmitted diseases as they have little power over their husband’s sexual behaviour outside their homes.
“We had to use one of our powerful tools, the Women’s Voices (a lobbying group), to convince the government that women needed the condoms more than men because traditionally, it is women who exercise family planning to prevent unwanted pregnancies.”
For de Klerk, looking back seven years and revisiting WAD’s success story is like counting the blessings one by one. The organisation’s main thrust has been to train women to identify problems within their communities and solve them.
The northern region of Omusati, Namibia’s most populous, has been the focal point of activity in terms of mobilising people for training projects. WAD hopes that its intense activity in the region will impact across Namibia.
“Mostly these training projects start with home economics in order to enable women to understand the relationship between factors in the near environment such as nutrition, hygiene, family planning and individual well-being,” says de Klerk.
WAD also assists women’s groups in starting their own businesses through training in income-generating projects and marketing skills. Projects range from sewing school uniforms to crop production, poultry farming and brick-making to stitching shopping bags.
The organisation also promotes the idea of saving in order to make women’s groups and their individual members more independent and self-reliant. Through the establishments of savings clubs, WAD introduces its members to financial planning and making productive use of their own resources.
Most importantly perhaps, the training helps women recognise their personal strengths in a country where attributes of self-reliance and independence have been traditionally associated with masculinity. Women learn to recognise their own worth and develop the courage of conviction to start speaking up on women’s issues.
“Women are sensitised on how to establish contact with decision-makers and to become bold lobbyists and agents of change. This invariably latches on to rural women taking cognisance of political activities and also to stand as candidates for election to political office at whatever level,” she points out.
However, de Klerk stresses that one of WAD’s ethical codes is to remain neutral and stay clear of partisan politics in order to avoid compromising the organisation’s values and principles.
Over the past seven years, WAD has managed to maintain a strong foothold in six regions: Omusati, Kunene, Erongo, Otjozondjupa, Maheke and Hardap. Moving at the same steady pace, de Klerk is certain that WAD will be able to cover all 13 regions in the near future.
Namibian President, Sam Nujoma, once acknowledged “WAD’s… approach of uplifting women is a testimony to the fact that the organisation is determined to develop the full potential of women.”
Brushing aside the praises, de Klerk meticulously goes through stacks of documents every day, answer calls from her regional offices, agrees to media interviews and prepare speeches for delivery.
“When I see a humble woman coming out of her poverty-stricken situation, sometimes unable even to talk to people, my tears almost drop.
“But after a year of grooming and training, when I see her again, this time going through her programmes confidently, coming to the front taking a microphone and making a presentation, I feel tall to associate myself with the radical revolution of the Namibian woman.” – GEMINI NEWS
– DAVID KASHWEKA is an editor and consultant with the Namibian biweekly, New Era.